What’s the Best Place to Put a Gun Safe?

So you’re thinking about buying a gun safe or have already purchased one but you’re not sure where to put it. There are quite a few options. Some of the main points to consider are: Conditions around the safe, Security, Visibility, and Access to an outside wall. One place you should immediately rule out is the garage. For some reason, some people still place their gun safe there even though it’s typically one of the hardest locations to reach when you need to protect your family and also there are too many temperature variations year round. Here are some better alternatives:

Bedroom

The bedroom would be my number one choice for gun safe placement. In most homes, it is one of the most out-of-the-way rooms where a small number of visitors will ever go. Also, nighttime is the most common time for when you need to grab your firearm for protection. You simply don’t want the stress on not being able to reach your gun when you need it most. For larger safes, anchoring them inside a closet or the corner of the bedroom is the best. For a handgun, a bedside dresser seems to be the most common place to put a small, single pistol gun safe so it’s always within easy reach. Also a good location, keeping your safe in a spare bedroom’s closet is a place that’s not on the top of the list of most burglars and in most cases, there won’t be much visitor traffic.

Home Office

A dedicated home office is another good location to keep a compact gun safe. One of the most popular safes for this purpose is the Gunvault SpeedVault SV500 which mounts discretely to the side or underside of your desk. It can easily be hidden yet within an arm’s reach. There are also many diversion safes available that look like normal objects found in an office (ex: a book) but actually contain a handgun.

Basement

The basement is one of the very best locations to keep a large safe. Here you are less concerned about protecting your family from intruders but place more importance on lessening any chance of theft. A large rifle safe is hard enough to move to the basement when it’s empty. Once full of firearms and bolted down to the floor, most thieves would not even take the time to try and instead look for easier targets. This is also another area where a safe would be hidden fairly well. With basements, you do need to keep a tab on the humidity level.

While all the above locations are good places to keep a gun safe, every situation is different. If you plan on using the safe frequently as is the case of concealed carry holders, you need to make sure it’s convenient to get to or you risk the chance of the gun safe falling out of use over time. That is when tragedies happen. If you mainly use a gun safe to store valuables, you want to use a highly secure location that’s well hidden and maybe even hard to get to as you won’t need to use it often.